In his classic work, Sefer Ha'ikarim, Rabbi Josef Albo presents Judaism as based on three basic beliefs:

1.             Belief in the Creator

2.             Belief that the Torah was given to the Jewish People by G-d

3.             Belief that the Creator supervises and controls the universe and all that He created

He continues to explain that each of the three major festivals, Pesach, (Passover) Shavuos, and Sukkos, comes to implant faith in the Jewish heart a renewed faith in one of these principles.

Pesach commemorates the Exodus from Egypt, during which G-d clearly demonstrated for all that it is He who rules Heaven and Earth.  The irrefutable miracles which occurred, starting with the Ten Plagues, and carrying on with the Splitting of the Red Sea and the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, proved beyond any doubt that man – even so powerful a monarch as Pharaoh – cannot begin to think of contravening G-d's will.

When we gather in our homes on the Seder night and recount the story of the Exodus, we reaffirm the faith in our hearts and in the hearts of our children that G-d, and not man, is the Master of the Universe.

This fundamental faith is encapsulated in the first of the Ten Commandments: I am the L-rd your G-d Who took you out of the Land of Egypt.  (Deuteronomy 5:6)  The Exodus is an important cornerstone of our faith in One G-d.

On Shavuos, G-d gave the Torah to us on Mount Sinai.  An entire nation, comprising 1,200,000 adults, plus their children, saw and heard the voice of G-d when He addressed the People of Israel.  The giving of the law to the Jewish people became a historical fact, with over a million witnesses, which henceforth could not be denied.  Each year, on the sixth of Sivan, we re-experience this historical event and consolidate our faith in our hearts.  Its commemoration has extensive, practical repercussions on our lives each day.

On the festival of Sukkos, we leave our homes for the sukkah, a temporary home built according to rules specified by the Torah, and dwell there for the duration of the holiday, seven or eight days.  By doing so, we affirm our faith that our lives follow the pattern of the creation, in that we, no less than the rest of His creation, are under G-d's constant control and supervision. So long as we live our lives safely squirreled away in our personal "nest", with a man-made roof over our heads, it is difficult to experience directly the influence G-d has on our lives.  The buttons of the air condition, the lighting system, and a myriad of other appliances arouses a false sense of being in control of our destiny.

However, the sukkah, with its relatively flimsy roof, exposes us to G-d's elements, so that we are more keenly aware of the fact that it is He who is in control.  When we move out into our sukkah, a temporary shelter for the week of the festival, we expose ourselves more directly to G-d's influence, and experience His providence firsthand.

The Festival of Sukkos is designated "the Season of our Joy."  Only this festival carries a commandment to rejoice.  It behooves us to do our best to gladden the hearts of those around us.  "And you shall rejoice in your festival, you and your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, the Levite and the stranger, and the orphan and the widow who are within your gates." (Deuteronomy 17:14).

So long a man feels that it is he who controls his own fate, he will experience tension and be plagued by doubts.   Fears of the future will becloud his heart.

In contrast, he who acknowledges G-d as the Master of the Universe, who realizes that He guides all His creatures with exacting, on-going divine supervision, will experience no end of joy, for he has no cause for concern or worry.  This is why Sukkos, above all other festivals, is the time that each and every Jew has the opportunity to experience the height of joy.